Chapter 2: The Witch Box

Liam carried the stone box to his old bedroom like he was transporting a bomb. Every step up the creaking stairs made the thing feel heavier, its unnatural warmth seeping through his palms and into his bones. The symbols carved into its surface seemed to pulse in rhythm with his heartbeat, though that had to be his imagination. Had to be.

His childhood bedroom was a time capsule of arrested development. Faded posters of cars and bands still clung to the walls, their edges curled with age. A twin bed sat beneath a window that looked out over the backyard—over the woods where he and Neil used to play as kids, before everything went to shit. Before their mother disappeared and their father became something else entirely.

Dust particles danced in the afternoon light streaming through dirty glass as Liam set the box on his old desk. Up close, he could see that the symbols weren't just carved into the stone—they were burned in, the edges blackened as if branded by a hot iron. Some looked almost familiar, like half-remembered nightmares or pictures from books he'd seen as a child.

The wax seal around the lid was seamless, fused to the stone as if it had been melted in place. But when Liam ran his fingers along the edge, looking for a way to break it, the material crumbled at his touch like it had been waiting years for someone to open it.

For him to open it.

The lid was heavier than it looked, requiring both hands to lift. Ancient hinges protested with a grinding sound that seemed to echo longer than it should have in the small room. As the box opened, a smell wafted out—not unpleasant exactly, but strange. Like earth after rain mixed with something medicinal and sharp.

Inside, nestled in what looked like dark velvet, were five objects arranged with deliberate precision.

A mason jar filled with dirt so black it seemed to absorb light. Liam lifted it carefully, noting how the soil shifted and moved like it was still alive, still growing things in the darkness of the glass.

A bundle of herbs tied with twine, their leaves dried to the point of brittleness. He didn't recognize the plants, but their scent was overwhelming—bitter and green and somehow wrong, like they'd been picked from soil that had never seen sunlight.

A small vial filled with liquid the color of old blood. When Liam held it up to the light, the contents moved sluggishly, too thick to be water, too thin to be anything he wanted to identify. Something dark floated in the depths, a speck that might have been sediment or might have been something else entirely.

A lock of hair bound with a thin ribbon. Not the grey strands from the kitchen garbage—this was golden, fine as spun silk, beautiful in a way that made his chest ache with recognition. His mother's hair. He was sure of it, though he couldn't say why. The color, the texture, even the way it caught the light was exactly as he remembered from those few, precious memories before she'd vanished from their lives.

And finally, at the bottom of the box, a photograph torn roughly in half. The remaining piece showed a woman in a wedding dress, her face radiant with joy as she looked at someone outside the frame. Someone who had been deliberately, violently removed from the picture.

Liam's hands shook as he lifted the photo. His mother. Amy Thorne, young and beautiful and alive, captured on what should have been the happiest day of her life. The tear through the middle of the photograph was jagged, angry, as if someone had ripped it apart in a fit of rage.

But it was the inside of the lid that made his blood turn to ice water in his veins.

Carved deep into the stone, burned and blackened like the symbols on the outside, were three words in his father's unmistakable handwriting:

REWIND THE TAPE.

The phrase hit him like a physical blow. Not because he understood what it meant, but because of how wrong it felt in this context. His father had been many things—violent, drunk, unstable—but he'd never been mystical. Never been interested in anything that couldn't be fixed with tools or solved with his fists. The idea of him collecting grave dirt and mysterious herbs, of him performing some kind of ritual with their mother's hair, was so fundamentally at odds with everything Liam thought he knew that it made his head spin.

Downstairs, he could hear Neil moving around, the soft sounds of cleaning and organizing that had been going on since he'd arrived. Normal sounds. Safe sounds. They seemed to come from another world entirely.

Liam picked up each item again, studying them with new eyes. The dirt in the jar was definitely from a grave—he could tell by its consistency, the way it had been mixed with other things. Bone meal, maybe. Ash. The herbs looked like something from a witch's garden, plants that grew in shadow and fed on secrets.

And the blood in the vial...

He held it up to the window, watching the thick liquid move against the glass. There was too much of it to have come from a simple cut. Someone had bled deliberately for this, had filled the container with purpose and intent. The dark speck floating in the depths shifted as he watched, and for a moment it looked almost like an eye, staring back at him through the amber glass.

His father, the man who had beaten Neil senseless in front of half the town, who had gone to prison screaming about lies and secrets, had been keeping a witch's toolkit in their garage. Had been practicing some kind of dark ritual that involved their missing mother's hair and what looked suspiciously like human blood.

The implications crashed over him like a cold wave. Had his father killed his mother? Was that what this was—some kind of trophy collection, souvenirs from a murder? Or was it something else, something even worse? The careful arrangement of the objects, the ritualistic precision of their placement, suggested this wasn't just about death. It was about control. About binding something, containing it.

About keeping something locked away.

REWIND THE TAPE.

What tape? What was his father trying to tell him? And why leave it for Liam to find? Why not Neil, who had been living in the house all these years, who had been taking care of their father's affairs?

Unless Neil already knew. Unless Neil had always known.

Liam thought about his brother's reaction to the mess in the kitchen, the way he'd avoided looking at the putrid meat, the desperate speed with which he'd offered explanations that didn't quite make sense. The grey hair mixed in with the rot, too fine and smooth to be from any animal.

Human hair. Like their mother's, but aged. Weathered.

The box felt different now that it was open, lighter somehow, as if whatever had been contained within it was now free to move around the room. The symbols on its surface had stopped their subtle writhing, but the stone itself seemed to be breathing, expanding and contracting with a rhythm that didn't match his own heartbeat.

From somewhere deep in the house came a sound—soft, wet, like something being dragged across the floor. It could have been Neil, still cleaning up the mess from the garbage bag. It could have been the old house settling on its foundation.

It could have been something else entirely.

Liam closed the box with shaking hands, but the damage was already done. Whatever spell or ritual his father had been maintaining, whatever protection these objects had provided, was broken now. The careful arrangement had been disturbed, the ancient balance upset.

And somewhere in the house below, Neil had gone completely silent.

The afternoon light streaming through the window had taken on a different quality, thicker somehow, as if the air itself was changing. The woods outside looked darker than they should have in broad daylight, their shadows deeper and more substantial.

REWIND THE TAPE.

The phrase echoed in his mind like a prayer or a curse, three words that promised answers to questions he wasn't sure he wanted to ask. But he was going to ask them anyway. He was going to find that tape, going to discover what his father had been so desperate to hide.

Even if it destroyed everything he thought he knew about his family.

Even if it destroyed him.